“My years are sufficient to tell me that Leicester goes too far.”
“He often does,” Thomas remarked evenly. “And, thus, he will one day overreach himself.”
“Until then are we Butlers to suffer his attacks on our loyalty?”
“We Butlers!” Thomas smiled. “It warms me to hear my kinsman speak with such fidelity.”
Revelin’s expression soured further. “You are deliberately turning the conversation.”
Thomas chuckled. “And you would rather I blacken Leicester’s name with every oath and curse that comes to hand? I am ever mindful of Leicester, but the queen is partial to him at present; and though he does not know it, she will tire of him. When she does, she will look about the court for familiar faces, faces that do not remind her of Leicester. Were I to become his major opponent, she would look on me and, through me, be reminded of him. What a waste of opportunity.”
Hearing Thomas speak thus, Revelin was tempted, as he often had been these last weeks, to ask his uncle if the story Piers had told him was true. Yet, something held him back. Respect, perhaps, and the desire not to incur his uncle’s wrath. Still, those were not the only reasons. There were things a man kept to himself.
“Were you called into the queen’s presence today?” Thomas asked.
Revelin shook his head. “I doubt she remembers I exist.”
Thomas lazily glanced over his nephew’s elegantly clad body and smiled. “She remembers.” His gaze lingered on the well-developed muscles of Revelin’s thighs until the younger man blushed. “And, lad, she’s partial to a briefer trunk hose in her courtiers.”
“The devil, uncle! You make me out to be little more than meat on the hoof.”
“A passable young buck, perhaps,” Thomas agreed with a chuckle. “As to that, where were you last evening? Lady Alison asked about you at the Danver’s musicale. I was forced to invent a lie. I told her you are much enamored of the theater and had gone to sample London’s latest fare.”
Revelin’s expression did not change but his gaze became unfocused and remote. Alison had been much on his mind of late, and still he had not found the words to break off their engagement.
“You owe her a better showing while in London,” Thomas remarked. “There’s talk that needs only a wicked tongue’s telling.”
“Who would dare?” Revelin demanded.
“Who would not? The lady in question has waited impatiently for her young swain’s return, only for court intrigue and fairy tales to keep him fully occupied. The ladies of the court, jealous creatures that they are, have already begun to worry the notion. Lady Alison was not without admirers while you were away. She kept them at bay with whispers of impending marriage. What say you to that?”
Revelin’s green eyes twinkled in answer. “I wish Lady Alison and her husband a happy, healthy life.”
Thomas fingered the missive in his pocket. “You have spoken to her?”
“No, I have not.” Revelin met his uncle’s gaze. “But I will, and soon. I cannot marry her. I had hoped that this business at court would not drag on, so that…”
Thomas picked up the dangling thread, “So that you could return to Dublin and your Irish mistress. Lad, you’re a fool if you think that soft thighs and misty eyes are the length and breadth of love.” He smiled paternally. “We Butlers are a lusty lot, ’tis the boon and bane of our menfolk. We make good husbands for docile wives, and our mistresses are all the better for it.”
“We’ve had this discussion before,” Revelin reminded him.
“But you were not listening! The lass is in Ireland; leave her there. Lady Alison will not wish to forsake her place at court for the wilds of Ireland. You, on the other hand, have ties that will make frequent trips to Ireland understandable. Two households, two lives. Who’s to care a pig’s fart whether that one houses a wife and the other a mistress?”
Revelin rubbed the weariness from his eyes with a hand. “You do not understand. She does not understand who or what I am. She loves
me
and nothing more, not even my name. I feel free when I am in her company.”
“’Tis a rare luxury,” Thomas agreed. “Keep the lass. Marry Lady Alison.”
Revelin smiled slightly. “I thought I was old enough to know my own mind.”
Thomas sat back, not defeat but disgust showing on his handsome face. “I am your foster father, and I will not give my blessing to any match that does not further your career and standing. Do you understand what that means?”
“Aye,” Revelin answered quietly. So it had come to this.
“That we may be perfectly clear, I will say this once. If you persist in your contrariness and do not marry where your family wishes, you will be disowned, your ties to Butler lands forfeit. As for the queen’s wrath, you’ll find no help from me there.”
Revelin had known what Thomas would say, but the words made him shudder inside just the same. “You would like Meghan; she knows many tales of Fionn and the legendary Fianna.”
Nonplused at last, Thomas merely stared at his nephew.
“I love her,” Revelin said simply.
“God’s death! I begin to believe the changeling has bewitched you!”
Revelin’s expression changed. “From where would you have heard that?”
Gratified to have pricked his nephew’s composure at last, the earl smiled, touching the letter in his pocket. “So ’tis true, what I’ve heard of the lass. She’s marked, is she not? A disfigurement that any sane man would draw back from. You’ve been tricked, lad. I don’t know by what method, but the lass has captured your mind and will not rest until she has your soul as well!”
“Sir Richard Atholl has been to see you, the bastard!” Revelin exclaimed in anger.
Thomas crushed the letter. Atholl was not the only one to plead his case against the O’Neill wench, but Thomas would not play all his cards at once. “Aye. Atholl fears for your sanity, lad, and I thank him for the concern. He believes, as I do, that your passions have blinded your good sense!”
Revelin rose abruptly. “If you want me gone from your home, I will leave this very night.”
Thomas rose more slowly and put a restraining hand on Revelin’s arm. “Lad, see reason. I do not share Atholl’s opinion that the girl has cast some spell on you. I say, have the lass. But is it reasonable that you should throw away any chance for advancement and success because you’ve fallen in love? It speaks of a lack of reason for you not at least to consider the possibility.
“I need you. You shall become my right hand at court. My brothers, Edmund, Edward, and Piers, are too much like the Irish in their thinking to understand the complexities of my work here in London. But you, Revelin, you can aid me in my struggles at court.”
Thomas slid his arm about Revelin’s shoulders. “I was young once. I know the pangs of first love, but I was wise enough and strong enough to put those matters in perspective. If she loves you as much as you say, you will find a way to keep her. Tell me, has she declined the position of your mistress?”
When Revelin shook his head, Thomas’s face split with a smile. “She has not? Lad, what madness drives you? Ask her. If you do not, there are others in Dublin who will. If she is as beautiful as you say, she will have no trouble making her way in the world of men.” Revelin turned on him an incredulous look that Thomas found he could not destroy. If the girl was being unfaithful with his friend Neville, as the letter opined, then Revelin would learn about it soon enough.
Thomas gazed fondly at his nephew. A first love was the most difficult to lose, but Revelin was young and handsome. He would find others, many of them if the Butler tradition was any indication. “To prove my faith in you, I will write the lord deputy tonight expressing my wish that the lass be sent to my castle in Kilkenny. He’ll have no choice but to send her and she’ll be there waiting when you return to Ireland. In the meantime, you must go to Lady Alison and rebuild the bonds you’ve been so eager to rupture.” He pushed Revelin firmly toward the door. “Go, lad! Now! And kiss her once for me!”
Revelin moved into the hallway of his uncle’s home with his emotions in knots. What Thomas had said was true. From the first he had known he was indulging in boyish fantasies. From the first, Meghan had not seemed quite real. She was the stuff of fancy, of lustful adolescent dreams, of a future that could never be in reality. He had known that. Where had he gone wrong? In his love for her, he had lost his perspective.
Meghan was a wildness in his blood. Like Ireland, she held for him ever-fresh delights. Like spring wine, she was tart and sweet and pungent. In her arms he had felt the stirrings of a kind of freedom that no longer existed for men of his ilk. He had responsibilities, duties to family and his sovereign. For a short time, loving Meghan had seemed to release him from those duties. Now he recognized that he was not free nor would ever be.
Alison was lovely. He had forgotten how lovely she was until he saw her in the corridors of Whitehall. And she still loved him, it was there in the gentle blue depths of her eyes. She was well versed in the arts of womanhood and she would grace his home and raise his children and make life easier at court.
“Ah, Meghan,” he murmured regretfully as he reached the door. She would be with him all his life.
*
Meghan sat with her back to the gallery room at Dublin Castle gazing with bright eyes upon the docks of the river Liffey. Revelin had been away a month now, and yet every morning she awakened with the hope that this was the day he would return. When, the morning after Revelin sailed, Sir Henry Sidney had suddenly appeared on the doorstep with an invitation for her to stay at Dublin Castle, she had not wanted to accept. But Mrs. Cambra, unusually subdued, had packed her belongings and bundled her off without a word of protest.
“Daydreaming, Mistress O’Neill?”
Meghan looked up at the sound of a familiar voice and
smiled. “Sir Robin, come and join me,” she pronounced in her new halting English. “Is it not a beautiful day?”
Robin followed her gaze out the window to the docks where the river ran in a swift even stream of brown and green. At dockside two merchant ships were reloading. “He won’t be back today, Meghan. It could be weeks before he returns.”
“It is weeks!”
Robin chided her with a clucking of his tongue. “Such heat, mistress, and with so few words yet at your command.”
Meghan looked at him with a mutinous expression. “When will Revelin return?”
Robin sat beside her. “Smile, mistress. We are watched.”
Meghan turned to glance back at the long galley, which was far from empty. Clusters of men were gathered in conversation while others strolled the chamber as they chatted. Yet she knew none of them was as interested in what the other was saying as they all were in catching a glimpse of her.
Robin saw her defiance change to uncertainty; he reached out his hand to her and she took it. “Has it been so terribly awful for you?”
Meghan lowered her gaze but continued to grasp his hand. “The meals is worst.”
“Are worst, the meals
are
the worst,” Robin corrected automatically, for, at Revelin’s request, he had taken charge of teaching her English. “In my humble opinion, Sir Sidney provides a fine table.”
Meghan smiled a little. “’Tis not what I mean. They stare at me. All through the meal I feel eyes on me.”
“How disconcerting,” Robin remarked. “I had not considered it before, but I suppose a beautiful woman must feel completely worn after an evening in the company of ogling men.”
Meghan gave him a doubtful glance. “’Twas not beauty they stare at.” She raised a hand to her cheek. “’Tis this.”
Robin smiled. ‘“The Irish Rose.’ Ah, yes, ’tis what the
gentlemen have named you.” He would not tell her of the others, less delicate but more expressive of the lust she unknowingly inspired. “I’ve warned them that you are well protected by a demon of vast proportions, and should they attempt any liberties they risk their lives.”
Meghan gazed at him in horror, her English fleeing. “Ye didn’t! Ye wouldn’t!”
Robin chuckled. “My Gaelic is slower to mature than your English, mistress, but I would have you know I was referring only to your loyal protector.” He glanced down at the huge pile of fur at Meghan’s feet, and Ualter thumped his tale in appreciation of the recognition.
Meghan reached out and entwined her fingers in the long, stiff fur of the dog’s neck. “Aye, Ualter is my protection.” She cast an angry look at one of the gentlemen who paused near them to smile at her. “’Tis black-hearted he is,” she confided to Robin.
“Who?”
Meghan nodded in the man’s direction. “That gentleman asked me to join him for wine last evening. Said he wanted to learn Gaelic. He tore me best gown before I could free me skean.”
Robin frowned, lost in her Irish speech.
Meghan rolled back the sleeve of her gown, revealing the jeweled O’Neill dagger. “I cut his doublet,” she said and made an appropriate move with an imaginary weapon.
“Mercy’s Grace!” Robin whispered in dismay. “Mistress Meghan, I beg you, carve no English geese! Revelin would not like it.”
Meghan nodded and said deliberately in English, “Revelin will be angry. ’Twas a vastly expensive gown.”
Robin nodded absently. He doubted that Revelin’s concern would be caused by the loss of the gown. A rare glint of anger gleamed in his eyes. He had spent part of every day in Meghan’s company, but it seemed that was not enough to discourage the
more persistent gallants in Dublin. The noblemen in town for the parliamentary session were accustomed to the more willing ladies of the court, and certainly Meghan’s reputation as Revelin’s mistress was not likely to deter them in his absence. So, Robin mused with a smile, he would simply let it be known that Meghan was now under his protection.